Chapter 10

-Percy-

As Emmanuel takes a step towards me, he suddenly collapses. Leaping off the bed, I rush over to him and shake him gently, trying to wake him up. What happened?!

Picking him up, I gently place him on the bed, unsure whether I should try and get help and risk leaving him alone, or stay with him…I need to get help. Maybe he was just tired and fainted, but still. I don’t know for sure what happened. 

So I run back to the main hall, where Keye is still helping out. And then I go back up to my mate, and he’s exactly how I left him; he hasn’t moved at all. Sitting on the bed next to him, I smooth the hair out of his eyes. 

A moment later, Keye bursts into the room with the pack healer and I’m ushered out of the way so that Emmanuel can be inspected. 

The healer asks a bunch of questions about Emmanuel’s health, like whether he’s eating enough and things, but of course I can’t answer any of the questions, and Keye can answer all of them. It’s a stupid thing to be upset about; she’s his beta and best friend, obviously she knows him better than I do.

I just hate that I’m jealous of her. 

“He’s overworked. That combined with not eating enough and lack of sleep equates to this. Especially if he’s been getting more angry recently; that usually takes a lot out of him,” the pack healer concludes. Keye nods, instantly reaching for her phone. “I’ll call his mother; she will want to come back to check on him.”

The pack healer leaves and Keye steps out of the room to call Emmi’s mother whilst I climb back onto the bed and sit next to my mate. He looks so calm, so relaxed. 

I’ve never seen him like this. 

When we first mated, I fell asleep right after we gave each other our mating marks. I didn’t see Emmanuel fall asleep, and I think he left right after anyway. And since we met again, I’ve seen him angry. I’ve seen him upset. I’ve seen him ashamed and guilty and distraught and worried.

But I haven’t seen him happy. I haven’t seen him smile properly, I haven’t seen the joy in his eyes. I haven’t seen him smile confidently as he takes my hand in his, I haven’t seen him pull me into a hug because he missed me.

And I really want to see all those things, and many more.

The moment Emmi chased after me when I left yesterday…that was when he decided. He had already decided that he was going to try and make us work. He had already decided to put in the effort. And I pretended that I was doing the same. I pretended that I was trying, that I was willing to make the effort.

But I wasn’t, not really. 

I was scared. I didn’t want to get hurt, I didn’t want to be abandoned again. But let’s face it…I have no one left to abandon me. The only person who can hurt me, is Emmanuel. And this relationship will be hard; I already know that it will be.

But a part of me wants to stick around to see if it’s worth it. Is it worth it to open up to him? To tell him what I’ve been through? To tell him that I never regretted mating with him? To tell him that the thought of him carried me through the hardest times? To tell him that I want to be with him?

Is it worth it?

I’ll never know. But I want to find out. I want to be Emmanuel’s real, actual mate; not just the random wolf he fucked in a forest. I want to know about his likes and dislikes, I want to help him, I want him to feel happy around me, I want him to know that I’ll stay by his side through the worst.

I want him to know that I’m here for him.

—————

-Emmanuel-

The first thing I notice is that my head is on something warm and pretty solid. But when I open my eyes, I can’t see anything. Well no. I can see my ceiling. What I mean is that I can’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Until it occurs to me that I can hear someone breathing. Tilting my head backwards and to the side, I stare up at my sleeping mate. His head is resting against the headboard of my bed, one of his hands resting on his leg and the other is on my shoulder, as I’m just discovering. 

And this is when I realise my head is in his lap. 

So I stay perfectly still so as to not wake him and ruin the moment. 

It occurs to me that my head must be just on his left leg, or it wouldn’t be warm and would also be considerably less comfortable, because the other one is made of metal. Well, this makes sense because Percy is sitting at a right angle from me, so he must have thought about that before using his leg as pillow for me.

He has nice thighs, I think with a small smile as I remember all of the times I’ve seen Percy without his trousers on. Which is kind of a lot considering we haven’t known each other long. Perhaps trousers are uncomfortable for him? I’m not sure.

I’m surprised he let me sleep on him though, especially because he is asleep too. From what I’ve gathered, Percy doesn’t really like physical contact. Most of the time if I initiate it, he’ll move my hand away or something. But when he is the one to initiate contact, he seems alright with it. 

His grip on my shoulder suddenly increases; he was resting his hand on me but now he’s gripping my shirt tightly, his fist balled up. Tilting my head to the side to peer up at him again, Percy’s expression completely changes from the calm sea to a tumultuous ocean; his eyes are squeezed shut and- and he’s crying.

I panic.

I have absolutely no idea what to do - wake him up? Try and comfort him? Just wait for it to pass? Well, I’m absolutely not doing that last option, I can’t let him continue in this much discomfort. Slowly prying my shirt from his hand, I nuzzle into his palm, placing a kiss there and stroking across the back of his hand. 

Percy lets out a little whimper and another tear trickles down his cheek. 

The thing is, I don’t want Percy to feel threatened in his nightmare. I don’t want to make any massive movements which could result in him waking up and panicking; whatever I do, it has to be small. 

So I reach up and press my hand to his cheek, stroking across his cheekbone. “Percy, it’s alright,” I say quietly, still holding his other hand. “You’re safe, it’s alright. It’s all going to be alright.”

Suddenly, his eyes snap open.